Hamnet
When Eliza hears these claims, made in her presence by people in the street, by neighbours, by those to whom she sells gloves, she doesn’t pretend not to have heard. She stops in her tracks. She holds the eye of the gossip in question (she has an unnerving stare: this she knows – her brother has told her often enough; it is, he says, something to do with the purity of her eye-colour, the way she can open her eyes wide enough for the whole iris to be seen). She is only thirteen but she is tall for her age. She holds their gaze long enough for them to drop their stare, for them to shuffle off, chastised by her boldness, her silent severity. There is, she has found, great power to be had in silence. Which is something this brother of hers has never learnt.
From the archives
·
1987
The Medusa Frequency
At three o'clock in the morning Eurydice is bound to come into it. After all, why did I sit here like a telegrapher at a lost outpost if not to receive messages from everywhere about the lost Eurydice who was never mine to begin with but whom I lamented and sought continually both professionally and amateurishly. This is not a digression. Where I am at three o'clock in the morning - and by now every hour is three o'clock in the morning - there are no digressions, it's all one thing.
LET ME NOT BE REAL, the Kraken said again.
There was nothing I could say about that and I didn't know what to say so I said nothing.
YOU DON'T TELL ME THAT I'M NOT REAL.
Again I didn't say anything.
THEN I AM REAL. I HAVE BEEN THOUGHT OF TOO MANY TIMES UNTIL THERE HAS COME TO BE SUCH A THING AS I, THE KRAKEN, LIVING WHERE I LIVE AND PERCIPIENT ALWAYS.
Tell me about your beginnings.
Read more of this excerpt...
The Medusa Frequency
At three o'clock in the morning Eurydice is bound to come into it. After all, why did I sit here like a telegrapher at a lost outpost if not to receive messages from everywhere about the lost Eurydice who was never mine to begin with but whom I lamented and sought continually both professionally and amateurishly. This is not a digression. Where I am at three o'clock in the morning - and by now every hour is three o'clock in the morning - there are no digressions, it's all one thing.
LET ME NOT BE REAL, the Kraken said again.
There was nothing I could say about that and I didn't know what to say so I said nothing.
YOU DON'T TELL ME THAT I'M NOT REAL.
Again I didn't say anything.
THEN I AM REAL. I HAVE BEEN THOUGHT OF TOO MANY TIMES UNTIL THERE HAS COME TO BE SUCH A THING AS I, THE KRAKEN, LIVING WHERE I LIVE AND PERCIPIENT ALWAYS.
Tell me about your beginnings.
Read more of this excerpt...
WORDS TO LIVE BY
“The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like being pushed and pulled and yanked, punched and slapped and misunderstood and loved, we say, and the fishes sigh and touch our forearm sympathetically.”
2005 ·
Short Short Stories
Dave Eggers
NON-FICTION
NEW MUSIC